[⚫REC]

Released: 2008
Director: Jaume Balagueró
Cast: Manuela Velasco; Pablo Rosso; Ferrán Terraza; David Vert

[⚫REC] is another film in the 'reality cinema' category – like Cloverfield (made around the same time) and, if you remember it, The Blair Witch Project – in which we are presented with 'found footage' recovered in the aftermath of some sort of disaster. Everything we see is through a hand-held camera with a shakiness that's meant to make it 'real'. Although on a large screen this might give you motion sickness, it does lend it a surface reality which is intended to draw us in and heighten the scariness. Have to say, that didn't really work for me, but despite that I did really like this film. So did a lot of other people: it was popular with the critics, won a couple of Goyas (although it won a lot more awards at the Catalonian Film Festival, surprise, surprise) and is probably the most internationally well-known Spanish horror film, it's already spawned the predictable, shot-for-shot American remake.

Anyway, to the story... Ángela, a young, enthusiastic and inexperienced TV presenter together with a single cameraman, Pablo is shadowing the night shift in a Barcelona fire station for an episode of Mientras ustedes duermen (While You're Sleeping). For a while it's deliberately dull with Ángela appearing increasingly desperate for an emergency and some decent footage. Finally, she gets her wish and the crew respond to a call about an elderly woman trapped and shouting in her apartment. They meet the police there and in they go, deal with the various inhabitants of the building and then it's upstairs to see about the poor old lady. Without giving too much away, soon after this, the biting starts and suddenly we're into a classic zombie virus situation, complicated and contained by the fact that the authorities are remarkably efficient and have sealed the entire building (it's a bio-emergency, folks) before they can all run downstairs screaming and out into the street.

The scariest film ever, as the box says? Well, no. Not for me anyway. Quite scary in places, a few make-you-jump moments, and some nice tension-building at the start while we're wondering how will it all kick off but all told, it didn't raise my heart rate that much and I think the problem may be that because of the hand-held camera conceit, it just doesn't feel that real.

This might seem an odd statement given the 'realistic' premise of a single, unpolished viewpoint. However, cinematic reality (as opposed to real reality, whatever that is) is whatever we are used to seeing. Which is to say, the usual camera angles and shots and so forth which try to immerse the viewer in the action. By offering a viewpoint so different to the norm, [⚫REC] points up the unreality of all cinema and – by extension – of itself too. It therefore creates a separation between the viewer and the viewed which prevented me from buying into the film's reality which prevented me from identifying with events and characters on-screen and, ultimately, from caring. And if you don't care, you can't be scared.

Or at least, that's my pseudo-intellectual rationalisation for why I wasn't hiding behind the dog, whimpering with fear and wishing we'd watched The Sound of Music instead (although, to be fair, that is a scary movie!)

At 75 minutes, it's quite a short film and that works to its credit. Hollywood can overdo the repetition in this sort of plot with too many narrow escapes and chase scenes as the (often teenage) cast are picked off one by one. There's certainly some picking-off here, but each scene adds something to the story and it's never overly drawn out. Once we're in the building the pace is fast and remains so right to the end. Good ending too, and the right one, given the circumstances.

So, if you want constant, pants-wetting terror I can't recommend it (although many others have for just that) but if you want an intelligent, interesting zombie film (with a very interesting twist when we find out where the virus came from) with some good scares then I can. And I do.

Apparently, there's a sequel ([⚫REC]2) which picks up directly where the first finishes. It's similarly claustrophobic and at just 85 minutes, you could quite comfortably watch them as a double bill.

"La habitación de Fermat" - "Fermat's Room"

Released: 2007
Director: Luis Piedrahita & Rodrigo Sopeña
Cast: Lluís Homar; Santi Millán; Alejo Sauras; Elena Ballesteros; Federico Luppi

I think the last time the name Fermat featured in popular(?) entertainment was in the late 90s series Horizon, which broadcast the documentary, Fermat's Last Theorem. Unlike Horizon, the film, La Habitación de Fermat isn't actually about mathematics. It's a clever and stylish suspense thriller which uses the world of higher maths to give itself some intellectual allure.

Put simply, four mathematicians are invited to a seminar to discuss the ultimate mathematical enigma. One is a man in his 20s already feted for having solved Goldbach's Conjecture, although his proof was stolen before he could present it. Another is an inventor who puts his genius to practical use, creating anything from hydraulic presses to novelty popcorn makers. The third man is an elder member of the academia, a chess-player entertaining thoughts of suicide. To complete the quartet we have a woman about whom we know little (more on her later). Each has been sent a badge with the name of a famous mathematician – Galois, Pascal, Hilbert, Oliva – as a sort of anonymising nom-de-math. Once at their destination, they are joined by Fermat for dinner before getting down to business. However, Fermat is then unexpectedly called away and the fun begins. Our four protagonists are sent a puzzle via a PDA; they have one minute to solve it. Solve it they do but not in under a minute and once the minute is up the walls of the room start to move inwards, only stopping when the correct answer is entered in the PDA. It now becomes a race against time to solve the continuing puzzles, figure out who is really behind it all and try to escape before being crushed together.

It's an interesting conceit. The plot is essentially that of a somebody-wants-to-kill-us-all horror film but with all the gore removed (apart from the prospect of their ultimate compaction) and the characters having to rely on their brains. Without wishing to spoil, let's just say that all the characters were invited for a reason and there are a number of twists and turns before the climax.

Incidentally, if you're worried that maths puzzles will a bit dry and unengaging, don't be. The series of puzzles sent via the PDA are more logic problems than advanced calculus. The first example is as follows: A confectioner takes delivery of three boxes of sweets. One of mint sweets; one of aniseed sweets; and one a mixture of the two. Each box is labelled, “Mint”, “Aniseed” or “Mixture”. All the boxes are wrongly labelled. How many sweets must the confectioner remove in order to correctly label all three boxes? You might still find this dry and unengaging. Fair enough. If you do, just focus on the plot and the emerging backgrounds of the characters and the ratcheting suspense. By the way, the answer is: 1.

Back to the woman, codename Oliva. Of the four, she's the only one about whom we are shown nothing prior to the meeting. And what we do find out during the course of their entrapment seems to revolve around sex. Yes, she holds up her end of the puzzle-solving but unlike the others, we're not given anything about her maths credentials, ability, qualifications, etc. Without wishing to come over excessively feminist, I can't help but observe that the sole female character is the least-developed and most disposable of the four. If I were to be charitable, I might consider that perhaps the writers left her deliberately blurry to create suspicion. However, I have to say I didn't think it was her for a moment.

But I wouldn't want that one point to detract from what is otherwise a great film that engages with the brain as well as the gut. The tension winds tighter as the room grows smaller and the characters' deductions creep closer to the truth. It's a film that contrives to flatter your intelligence without actually being that hard to follow.

And, of course, with the added benefit – for those so inclined – that you can jot down the puzzles and annoy your friends with them.